My belief is that Paul certainly made a number of badge weights, including some on pedestals - but so did various Belgian / Alsace glassworks. I am not sure how to decide with some of them. I think the somewhat untidy weights with rather coarse frit grounds that resemble Belgian sulphide weights are of Belgian origin. I suspect that far too many are attributed to Paul.

Alan

Logged

Alan"There are two rules for ultimate success in life. Number 1: Never tell everything you know."

The comments in this posting reflect the opinion of the author, Alan Thornton, and not that of the owners, administrators or moderators of this board. Comments are copyright Alan Thornton.http://www.pwts.co.uk

I asked Dave Moir (Ysart Brothers, Vasart and Strathearn) about these badge weights last year and his comment was that all the Ysart family he worked with made them in their spare time – they regarded them as a nice little sideline with plenty of requests from all the troops stationed near Perth.

I have a Hampshire regiment cap badge weight (Picture 1). (3 1/4" diameter x 2" tall) The Hampshires became the Royal Hampshire regiment in 1946 so the badge although not necessarily the encasement predates that. The wording and the rose is a coppery colour although in the original badges it was gold. I assume the heat from the encasement has caused the change although the silver remains the same.

The weight has a facet top and bottom although I don't think it was a stem as the bottom facet is very rounded and appears fire polished. The top facet however looks as if it was ground off with quite sharp edges. Maybe it was the holding point while the bottom facet area was shaped?? (picture 2).

There are a few pieces of both gold and green adventurine in the ground (picture 3) so I suspect it was made by someone in the Ysart family rather than in Belgium although I have been unable to establish whether or not the regiment was stationed near Perth (which seems unlikely).

The base is interesting (picture 4) as it is polished and hollow ground with the remnants of a pontil. You can see the parallel grinding marks. The hollow grinding is very shallow which would indicate a large diameter wheel. I have asked Dave Moir if he can remember the size of the wheels used on the paperweight bases at Vasart.